


draw near and fear not - this is i

by TheGoodDoctor



Series: to be as one is [4]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Genderqueer Character, M/M, Mild Angst, Trans Terror Week 2020, also briefly sea shanties, gender as examined through the chivalric tradition, gender: what's all this then, the mortifying ideal of being known by your partner's family, those last two tags really tell you all you need to know about the author, very mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27602941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoodDoctor/pseuds/TheGoodDoctor
Summary: “James, your brother and sister are downstairs. Do you want to change for dinner?”A queer and pleasant danger.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Series: to be as one is [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013112
Comments: 26
Kudos: 52
Collections: Trans Terror Week





	draw near and fear not - this is i

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompts "last man standing/queer and pleasant danger"
> 
> content warnings just in case: james is ambiguously gendered. he's a victorian, we'll forgive him. he/him pronouns, but also he's a lady and a princess.
> 
> happy trans terror week!

“Francis?”

“Mm?”

“We require your expertise for a matter of grave importance.”

Francis sets his pen aside, not minding the drip of ink that mars the edge of the page as he moves slightly too fast; it is only for Blanky, and knowing him the letter will have been left on the beer-sticky pub counter, manhandled by floury fingers in the midst of challah production, and adorned with Mrs Blanky’s shopping list before Thomas has even broken the seal. And besides, James wants something. He twists in the chair and pulls the thin wire spectacles off his nose, folding them in his hand, and James gives him as disapproving a look as he can manage with a toddler on one hip pulling at his hair and a seven-year-old hanging off his other hand.

“You’ve stolen my specs again,” James chides.

Francis is careful not to smile. “I’m only borrowing them.”

James narrows his eyes. “You might get your own, you know. Our funds could stretch to it.”

“Nonsense,” Francis says, dropping James’ glasses atop his correspondence with an air of finality. “I don’t need spectacles. Now, what is this grave happening?” he inquires politely over the sound of James sputtering and huffing in indignation.

James glares at him and Francis grins, tongue caught in delight between his teeth. “Nothing at all, you impudent wretch,” James informs him with a tilt of his head, baring the smooth column of his throat and pointing his sharp, proud nose at the ceiling. Francis, enchanted, props his head up with his elbow on the table to settle in and watch.

“It _is_ a grave happening, Uncle Francis,” Anne tells him with defiant solemnity, and Francis raises an eyebrow at her in invitation to go on. He has learnt, now, how to speak to - well, if not _children_ as a whole, then at least this one child in particular. Since spending the last Christmas with the Coninghams he and James have become regular fixtures at their home and, having discovered that Miss Anne Coningham is a lady like most others, if a smaller one than most of his acquaintance, Francis has elected to speak to her exactly as he would any other lady. They get on rather well, in fact; Anne had once explained to her Uncle James that she likes her Uncle Francis best of all her many uncles because he treats her like a grown-up. James had then relayed this to the bright red skin beneath Francis’ right ear as he squirmed with mortified pleasure, in tones of such incredible, indelible delight that Francis fancies he can still feel the words there now, months later.

“You see, there is a dragon in the nursery,” Anne explains, “and so it must have a princess to be captured in the tower, so that a knight may come and rescue her.” Francis nods. All perfectly logical. “And Baby is too small to play, so Uncle James must be the princess, and we need you to help him dress.” Anne tucks her hands behind her back, point made, and rocks from her toes to heels as though awaiting the judgement of a tutor.

Francis considers it, and nods. If he were Anne, he would make the grown-ups play the boring damsel-in-distress roles so that he could slay the dragons; he had, in fact, in the deep hazes of his memory roped his elder sisters into being rescued by him from various perils including, but not limited to, shadows, chairs, and their neighbour’s dog. It certainly doesn’t occur to him now to suggest that she play the princess instead. And James - Anne cannot possibly know it, of course, but James does have _form_ in this matter and so Francis rather suspects that he might in fact prefer the role his goddaughter has bestowed upon him. Still. He angles his eyes up at James again. “Fancy getting dressed up, do we?” he says quietly.

James looks away, shrugs, looks back. Locks his deep, dark gaze upon Francis. Shifts the toddler on his hip. Nods, once and firmly.

Francis nods back and pushes himself to his feet. “Right then,” he says easily. “Miss Anne, would you watch your sister whilst your princess gets dressed?”

Anne grins and nods smartly, standing to attention like a proper little midshipman, and skips ahead of them out of Mr Coningham’s study towards the nursery. Baby is gently deposited by some coloured wooden blocks, and then James is jogging back toward him and their rooms at the far end of the corridor. “My dear Francis, it has been an active morning,” he says with an exaggerated huff and Francis smiles. “Anne has a mile-a-minute mind, and Baby could crawl for England. And,” he says with a frown, hand drawing back from tucking a curl behind his ear, “she also has sticky fingers and a tendency to grab.”

“We can pin it back, if you like,” Francis says, holding the door open to let James into his own room. James hums in agreement, fussing with his shirt buttons as soon as the latch clicks behind Francis; at some point since breakfast, coat, waistcoat and cravat have all fallen victim to the care and entertainment of two active little girls, and James has since been charging about in a loose white shirt like a dashing pirate. Francis finds this greatly entertaining and, unfortunately, deeply attractive in large and equal measure. But it is only when James is hauling said shirt over his head that it occurs to Francis - “James, have you brought anything to wear? Your nightgown doesn’t seem quite the thing, but we could engage Anne in a secret raid on her mother’s hairpins if you’re willing to risk Mrs Coningham’s wrath.”

“Elizabeth’s wrath is great indeed, and not to be trifled with,” James says, voice slightly muffled by virtue of being buried quite deeply in his luggage. James’ sister-in-law is small and sweet with an overwhelming impression of blonde roundness to her and she may, in fact, be the least intimidating person Francis has ever met. He would rather be caught making an attempt on the Crown Jewels than on Mrs Coningham’s hair pins. “But fear not, my dear, for I have brought a great many things with me _just in case_.”

Francis watches with bemused curiosity as James throws combinations, corset, petticoats and second-best dress out of his trunk and onto the bed. Atop this pile, he drops three plain hairpins and a small enamel comb, and then James sits back on his heels and offers Francis a slightly embarrassed smile. “I do so hate to be underdressed,” he says with a wry, self-deprecating flick of his hair.

But his thumbnail is sawing nervously at the pad of his index finger as if inclined to slice through to the bone, and there is a sort of challenge in the set of his head, and Francis gets the feeling that this is a test. That James doesn’t mean it to be, and would hate to think of it that way, and that it rather is anyway. So Francis does all that he can, and says the first thing he thinks: “Impressive forethought, James; and here’s me, stealing your brother’s pen and paper for leaving my own at home. What did you want doing with your hair, anyway?”

James’ smile turns briefly fond and relieved, and then he bounces to his feet and begins wriggling out of his trousers. “Nothing complex; really you’re needed for corsetry and buttons, dear,” he says, hopping briefly on one leg. Yet again, Francis thinks it: they must move, and soon, to the countryside near James’ relations, for he always seems possessed of more health, energy and happiness out here than he does in the city. Theirs is a nice townhouse, and Francis will be put out to start growing his vegetables and roses anew in unfamiliar soil, but he will give up any and all of these things in an instant for James’ wellbeing.

A trouser leg wraps itself around his head and startles him from his thoughts of the rolling downland and James in a garden of roses. “Come on, old man,” James says with a laugh as Francis, glowering without feeling, pulls the fabric away from his face. He is already doing up the busk of his corset - Francis has been silently thinking for longer than he had supposed - and so Francis obediently circles behind him and takes this opportunity to poke him in the spine before the laces make it impossible

“Now I see how I’ve ended up doing this,” he says with mock-crossness. “You must have got through lady’s maids at quite the rate of knots.”

James twists his head to grin in delight over his shoulder. “Hurry up, then, or I’ll get rid of you next.”

Francis tangles his fingers in James’ loose laces and yanks sharply, making James gasp and stumble back against his chest. “Just you try,” he growls into the join of James’ neck and shoulder, the hand not holding him still creeping around to settle over James’ stomach. He can feel, under that proprietary spread of fingers and beneath the secretive shell of satin and baleen, James’ intake of breath and its shaky, sighing exhale as Francis presses a firm, possessive kiss to the thin, pale skin at the base of his neck.

“Francis,” James murmurs dreamily, tilting his head to the side to grant better access seemingly on pure instinct. Abruptly, he huffs a laugh and gently smacks Francis’ hand to remove it from his stomach. “You’re supposed to be getting me _into_ these clothes, sir,” he reminds Francis with amusement.

Francis allows himself one quick, chaste kiss to the nape of James’ neck and then pulls back, shelving his thoughts neatly and turning his attention to the process of evenly and neatly tightening the laces. He’s become quite a practised hand at it, now; it isn’t the distraction he was hoping for. “And may I get you _out_ of them later?” he inquires politely, tying off the ends and sliding two fingers beneath the laces to test the fit. On a whim, he tugs at them again; James gasps and sways, eyes fluttering closed.

“My dear sir,” James says softly, gazing at Francis from under his long, dark lashes. “I dare say with strength like that you could pick me up and do with me as you will.”

Francis raises an eyebrow, holding out James’ petticoat for him to step into. “Could I, indeed?”

“Mm,” James hums in agreement, tying his petticoat and sliding the bow out of sight.

“I shall remember that,” Francis says with deliberate mildness as he slides the dress over James’ head.

James’ gaze, briefly diverted by the business of ties and skirts, hits Francis like a punch to the chest as it suddenly snaps back to meet his eyes; all dark promise and private mischief and powerful, directed attraction - directed at _him,_ Francis - and James, on top of all that, smiles like a cat who has just learned how to open birdcages. “Do,” he instructs in a voice low and inviting, all warmth and slow, delicious potential, and Francis ever so briefly forgets how to breathe.

He marches quickly behind James and fumbles clumsy fingers over the tiny, fiddly buttons coated in some kind of shiny, slippery fabric. Quickly, he gives up, fingers unwilling to do anything requiring fine motor control and instead keen to spread possessively over James’ hips. “You menace,” he grumbles in James’ ear, delighting in James’ triumphant laughter.

In the time that it takes Francis to battle through the line of tiny buttons, James manages to comb out, twist up, and pin back his hair. It’s a very pretty effect: it shows off the long lines of his face and neck, with a comb set in his hair like the tiara of some statuesque Greek goddess. But Francis does wish that they had more time, because he does so like to run his fingers through James’ soft, shining hair - they do not, however, and they aren’t prepared to risk Anne coming to rescue them. There are some risks they may run together, in this house of James’ family, and apparently dressing up like this while William and Elizabeth are in Brighton to see their doctors is one of them, but Francis will not invite the danger of Anne seeing them together like this and asking her parents questions. He should hate to be the reason for an estrangement between James and his brother, or worse, to be estranged from James himself.

James tucks his hand into Francis’ elbow as they walk back to the nursery. Just for the walk, though; he detaches as they enter, and Francis is left feeling oddly bereft.

Anne gasps, and claps her hands in delight. Obligingly, James spins for her perusal, beaming at the implicit praise of his appearance; he is not praised enough for how well he looks in a dress, Francis thinks. A multitude of compliments from one man cannot quite compare to the adoration of the masses to which James is accustomed, and which he wholeheartedly deserves. “You are a perfect princess, Uncle James,” Anne pronounces, and James flushes bright red and flicks a tiny, pleased smile at Francis. “Isn’t he?”

“The Princess Royal herself could not compare,” Francis says solemnly and James rolls his eyes, the tips of his ears turning pink.

“I should hope not; she always looks tremendously bored. Right then, Sir Anne, where is this dragon going to keep me hostage?”

“Well,” says Anne, turning her thoughtful gaze upon the room, “if Uncle Francis will play the dragon-?” Francis inclines his head, pushing himself off the door jamb and closing the door behind him. “-then I suppose he may do as he likes with you.”

James shoots him a mischievous look. “I’ll say,” he murmurs as Francis approaches, and then squawks a laugh as Francis wraps his hands around James’ waist and lifts him bodily to stand on the armchair.

“Will that do?” Francis inquires of Anne, turning his back and ignoring James entirely.

Anne nods, well pleased with her arrangement of the game. James leans down and points across the room. “You’d better go and abduct Baby as well, Mr Dragon, and I shall keep an eye on her.”

Francis nods and strides over to where Anne’s little sister is enthusiastically knocking her wooden blocks against each other and the floor. “Aa,” she says, holding one out to him as he approaches.

“Thank you,” Francis says softly, tucking the gift in his trouser pocket and scooping the child up to sit on his hip. Traversing the nursery floor is always risky, strewn as it usually is with abandoned toys and crayons and such, but when Francis looks up from this careful journey James is looking at him rather expectantly. Francis sighs and clears his throat. “I have captured you, small princess,” he informs Baby in his finest slightly-menacing voice. She stares back at him with wide, curious eyes. James huffs like he’s biting his lips against laughter.

What does Francis remember, of being a child? What has he seen others do? There must be something, somewhere in his memory. Was he not a child once? Distantly - he thinks - he thinks he remembers being picked up and swung around by an elder sibling, or perhaps his mother. No - he remembers the glorious euphoria of the moment differently. He had been the baby boy, at that time, and subject to the great indulgence of his family - enough that he had asked his da to play with him, and his da had said yes, and had swung him round and round and lifted him in the air in the garden until he had thought he would be sick for laughing. The memory sits oddly; even then, he had seen the rarity of his father sober, or at least cheerfully drunk and indulgent, and how precious the memory was for that, and it is tinged with an odd desperation to hold it in his hands for ever and ever and knowing that such a thing could not be.

His foot slips slightly on a ribbon abandoned on the floor. James is looking at him with mild but growing concern. Francis shifts his grip on Baby and swings her up into the air, growling and play-acting at threatening to eat her as she squeals in delight. Anne giggles, taking up her stance with invisible sword or lance or spear at the ready - it changes function according to requirement, but Francis is certain that, if questioned, it would be deemed magical, _obviously_. James smiles and lifts Baby out of Francis’ arms carefully, settling her against his chest but sparing one hand to gently push Francis’ hair off his brow. Francis offers him the wooden block from his pocket and half a smile in reply to the concern which has settled at the corners of James’ eyes, and turns back to Sir Anne, his noble challenger.

He is not entirely sure how it comes to be, but hours pass; they are interrupted only by the butler appearing to inform the guests and the young ladies that the master and mistress of the house have returned and will be taking dinner in half an hour, if that is acceptable?

“Yes,” Francis says, with as much dignity and breath as he can muster; he is lying on his back with Anne sitting in triumph on his stomach, and he is out-of-shape and old. There is little enough of either to call upon. “That is - we shall be there in a moment.”

The butler nods, gazing upon the scene with stifled confusion and disapproval. “Do you require aid, Captain Fitzjames?” he inquires rather sharply.

James, to his credit, does not flush or squirm or appear at all perturbed; he simply adjusts Baby’s position on his lap and presses his ankles together, looking for all the world like the most demure lady that ever did sit atop a sturdy oak wardrobe. “Thank you, Davis, no. We shall be down presently.”

The butler recognises the dismissal, but Francis has rarely seen anyone look less happy about it. The door clicks shut behind him and immediately Anne huffs. “Do we _have_ to stop playing?”

“Don’t you want any dinner?” James says, largely ignoring the incredible pout this inspires. “Francis, dear, would you help me down?”

Francis gently pats Anne’s side until she gets off, still pouting. “I thought you didn’t require any aid,” he says, getting to his feet with a grunt. He’s getting too old for this.

James shoots him an unimpressed look, handing down Baby and waiting for Francis to place her gently out of the way. She immediately motors off across the room, proffering a wooden block to her sister; Anne pushes the little hand away sulkily, folding her arms, and Francis reaches up to James’ waist with rather more urgency than before - tears could well be immanent, and whilst there are a great many things which Captain Sir Francis Crozier of the Discovery Service is qualified to handle, crying little girls has never been and probably will never be one of them.

“Perhaps I just like you better,” James says, placing his hands on Francis’ shoulders and allowing himself to be lifted and swirled like some dancer at a ball to land lightly upon the floor with his toes between Francis’ slippers.

His back obstructs the rest of the room from view, so Francis risks rubbing his thumbs over the boned arc of James’ hips. “Should hope so, too,” he mutters, pretending to frown, and James smiles.

“Very much. Now then, children, washed hands and scrubbed faces and best feet forward for Mother and Father, hmm?” he says, spinning between Francis’ hands to face the children with Francis’ thumbs now resting over the dimples at the base of his spine. Anne makes a petulant face and James raises a hand. “Don’t spoil the day, Anne,” he says, voice soft but firm. “We’ll play again another day.”

“Promise?” Anne asks, and James nods. “And you’ll be the princess again?”

“I promise. But only for the most spic and span, well-behaved knights, so hop to it.”

Anne scrambles to her feet, pushing her long dark plait over one shoulder as she trots over to the washbasin by the window. James had plaited it neatly away when it had become clear that a mass of pretty curls and ribbons was not going to be practical for the realm’s finest dragon-slayer; Anne had wanted to set to with the kitchen shears, but this had been carefully and quickly vetoed. Francis leans in and presses a brief kiss to James’ neck, similarly unobstructed by hair - ever so glad though he is that it has grown back long and glossy after the expedition north and those long months of recuperation, long enough to obstruct and tease - and squeezes James’ corseted waist. “Do you want to change before we go down?” he murmurs, rather expecting James to rush off the moment he remembers his attire and his brother downstairs.

But James just hums and turns to look over his shoulder. “We shan’t have time, surely,” he says with a smile.

Francis frowns. “Half an hour is plenty-”

“You made me a great deal of promises regarding removal of these clothes,” James says very quietly, eyes alight with mischief, “and I expect all of them to take more than half an hour.”

Francis, damn it all, can _feel_ the blush creeping outwards, over his face and neck and ears, and he glowers ineffectually at James. “We might have to postpone those promises,” he grits out awkwardly and James grins.

“Until this evening, then.”

Francis huffs, glancing at the ceiling for patience. “James, your brother and sister are downstairs. Do you want to change for dinner?” He fixes his gaze on James, attempting to convey how much he is _not_ joking presently. Not for his own sake, but for his dear, beloved James’ - for how little does he wish for James to lose his only remaining family, when it could all be so easily avoided. It is not, precisely, that he does not trust Mr and Mrs Coningham, or that he does not believe in the strength of their affection for James. It is only that he-

He fears them. Their reaction, and how they might hurt James both intentionally and accidentally - he fears that something will be said or seen or done which cannot be undone, even if, after, reparations are made and the relationship returned to its usual good footing. Francis has an eye for danger, and this is that James is stepping into proudly in his neat silk slippers and swirling skirts. And Francis is afraid that he will be hurt, and that these slippers and these skirts will be somehow marred and made unappealing, and that James will be somehow diminished for it. Francis loves things that are too large and magnificent to be protected with his own two hands, and that scares him, too.

James’ smile turns soft and he squeezes the hand that rests on his hip. “No, darling Francis,” he says softly. “I am happy as I am - happy enough for a little risk that might make me yet happier.” Francis tries not to object, or ask if James is certain, but the desire must show on his face for James leans into Francis’ chest and smiles knowingly. “My dear dragon,” he murmurs, “keeping me squirrelled away and perfectly safe. But - _I am half sick of shadows_...”

 _...said the Lady of Shalott._ James had read it to him once, on a summer afternoon while Francis weeded the vegetable patch, in his lilting, storyteller’s voice, and the sadness of the Lady had struck Francis. Alone and safe, but never really alive; only weaving, ever weaving, a charmed and beautiful web. Rather desperately, Francis clutches at James’ hips in apology and fret and concern. James squeezes his hand again: _all right. All right, darling, all right._

“Besides,” James says with comforting amusement, “am I not already presentable enough for dinner?”

Francis presses his forehead into James’ neck. They are doing this, then. All right. “A little overdressed, if anything,” he says in a voice that cracks awkwardly in the middle.

“And you’ll come with me?” James asks, voice not quite level in his turn.

“Of course,” Francis says, immediate and soft and sure. “What kind of dragon would I be, to leave the princess unattended. Any old Lancelot might ride by.”

“Hear that, Anne?” James says, squeezing Francis’ fingers one last time and stepping out of his protective grip. “Any old Lancelot, indeed. Sir Anne Louisa, finest knight in the realm.” Anne beams radiantly, displaying her cleaned palms for her Captain’s inspection which James does with pretended minuteness. “Right, run off and see your parents, then. Come along, Baby.” Anne trots off, hanging off the door frame to wait when she realises that her uncles aren’t keeping pace; James scoops up Baby and shoots a slightly harried smile at Francis. Francis, who is still and silent and watching - watching with helpless adoration the way that James wears his dress so naturally, and so well, and so joyfully; the way that he minds his goddaughters; the way that he is so unapologetically, wonderfully _himself_ \- and who cannot chase the taste of Tennyson from his tongue: _draw near and fear not - this is I, the Lady of Shalott._

* * *

“Uncle Francis?”

“Mm?”

“Everyone has gone to sleep.”

Good grief, he really is getting old. Ungluing his eyelids from one another seems to take years; admitting to an after-dinner _nap_ , of all things, will take him considerably longer. Blearily, Francis blinks himself back to full awareness and struggles to situate himself more upright in his armchair. The room is gloomy, fire dying down and lamps untended, and sure enough all but Miss Anne are dozing idly, ranged over sofas in positions which their spines will likely have them regret upon waking. But well; it had been an active evening of forfeits and challenges and games that had been supposed to end with the children going to bed, only Anne had presented herself to say goodnight and somehow failed to return to her room, and her parents, in their endless indulgence, had simply suggested they play the Parson’s Cat once more. One game had inevitably followed another, and at some point between Francis begging off another round of Reverend Crawley’s Game with a twinging shoulder and now he must have fallen asleep. As indeed has everyone else but Anne, but then, William Coningham is an invalid; Elizabeth Coningham is rather obviously with child; and his dear James will never be entirely as well as he once was and has probably overstretched himself today. Francis is simply old.

He sniffs in annoyance and offers Anne a wry look. “Last man standing, are you?” She nods, biting her lip against a smile and twisting the end of her plait between her fingers. She’s never quite entirely still; every inch James’ niece. Francis harumphs, only slightly exaggerating for her amusement. “I was resting my eyes,” he tells her firmly; she beams and grins, bright as a pin. “What may I do for you, Miss Anne?”

The grin vanishes, swallowed up by nervousness that makes him frown. She digs her bare toes into the carpet and bites her lip, keeping her eyes steadily on the floor and not looking at him. “Will you walk me to bed, please?” she says, voice ever so small.

Francis nods. “If you like,” he says carefully. He’s not entirely sure what he’s needed for, here, nor why Anne is so awkward about it all of a sudden; but he’ll walk her down the dark corridor and up the silent staircase and - ah, all right. “I shall fetch us a lamp, hmm?” he says gently, levering himself out of the armchair. Sure enough, his hip voices a complaint about sitting so still for so long, but he instructs it sharply to be quiet and limps over to the little paraffin lamp on the side table. Anne is waiting by the door, rocking on her toes; she seems half eager to be away, as she ever is, and half afraid to step more than an inch into the bluey-grey darkness outside the warm oasis of the sitting room. Carefully, she precedes him three steps into the hallway, and then immediately stops, turns, and waits for his arrival with the light. Francis holds it a little higher, spilling slightly more golden comfort into the room as he walks.

Anne falls into step with him and a small hand slips into his. He holds it very carefully, like something very precious; he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Anne afraid of anything, not even when she had gotten herself stuck quite a long way up the oak tree near the pond and a neighbouring farmhand had had to be roped in to climb up after and fetch her down. Francis had sort of forgotten that things are scary when you are small.

“What are you humming?” Anne asks him, voice quiet in the muffling night.

He hadn’t really noticed that he was. “A sailor’s song,” he replies, “about a little ship with your name, who likes very much to go on adventures.”

Anne sighs wistfully. “I should so like to go on adventures, like you and Uncle James.”

“Not _exactly_ like our adventures, I hope,” Francis says quickly. There are some things which are not to be thought in conjunction with little Anne Louisa.

She shrugs, not minding him much. “It doesn’t matter anyway, because I can’t. Cousin Will says girls can’t go on adventures and sail the world because they’re all scaredy-cats, and I’m trying not to be, but it’s hard. It isn’t _fair._ ”

Francis tilts his head, staring into the middle distance and conceding the point. It _isn’t_ fair. And then he imagines a ship manned by Admiral Jane Franklin, captained by her niece, and helmed by Anne Coningham, and leans down to Anne conspiratorially. “I don’t think your cousin Will knows what he’s talking about.”

Anne gasps in scandalised delight. “But he’s nearly _thirteen_ ,” she says in amazement.

“Oh, well, that decides it. He _certainly_ doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Francis says, thinking of the many and various midshipmen of that age he has seen swagger and swear and generally make fools of themselves with all the glorious confidence of youth. Anne giggles, pressing a hand over her mouth as if her cousin, even at this distance, might hear. “Anne, everyone is frightened of something. That doesn’t mean that you cannot do things regardless.”

“But I have to be twice as brave as the boys just so that they allow me to play with them,” Anne points out, tapping her little fingers against his knuckles in idle thought.

He squeezes her hand. “I know. It isn’t fair.”

Anne turns to him suddenly, face aglow with lamplight and inspiration. “What if I cut off all my hair and ran away to sea? I could dress as a boy and - and put tar on my chin like a beard.”

Francis offers her an unimpressed look. “James has been singing to you again, hasn’t he,” he says, and Anne nods enthusiastically. “Hmm. Well-”

“Uncle James dresses up as a lady,” Anne says quickly, to deter his inevitable naysaying.

“And it is very brave of him to do so, because it is dangerous,” Francis says firmly. “So you must-” -must what? He knows not how to say _be as you are, yet be safe above all else, for you are small and precious and the world is wide and hard;_ he cannot, in good conscience, preach that Anne should dress and behave exactly as she will, and damn those who would oppose her. Not least because his throat is inclined to close in panic at the idea of any harm coming to her for it. He would prefer to tell her to stay still and quiet and do as she is bid, if it will keep her safe, but he does her a disservice in doing so. James is so much happier now, with his modicums of private freedom, and who is he to deprive Anne of the same risks and joys of her own?

“Must what?” Anne inquires, and Francis wishes very deeply that James were here to answer her in his stead.

“You must find out what it is that you want,” he says carefully, picking his words as slowly as a man inching out onto a frozen lake. “And then find out how to get it with the minimum of injury to yourself. So - you may be brave as you like and play with your cousins, but you mustn’t get stuck up any more trees.”

“That was only once,” Anne objects.

“And you mustn’t do it again,” Francis says, raising an eyebrow to make her smile. “And you may rescue your uncle from any number of dragons, but perhaps don’t run away to sea just yet.”

Anne pushes her door open, ignoring the gloom to trot across the floor and jump into bed. Francis places the lamp on the washstand as she wriggles about to warm the sheets and then kneels by her head to pull the last blanket up to her chin. “May I run away to sea eventually?” she asks politely.

Francis feels the side of his mouth smiling without his will. “We’ll see,” he allows. “Now go to sleep.”

* * *

“Francis?”

“Mm? Oh, I - I didn’t mean to wake you.”

William Coningham waves a hand idly. “You didn’t; I wasn’t sure when to let you know I was awake.”

Reflexively, Francis straightens to his ease. There is always some slight uncertainty about precisely how close he may appear to James before his relations; naturally, they are old friends who cohabit and so some familiarity is to be expected, but he is not quite certain that leaning in close and clasping said dear old friend by the shoulder to wake him enough that he may be hauled, half held and half carried, back to his own bed is not the wrong side of _familiar._ And so he pulls back and folds his hands behind his back and attempts not to look as guilty as he is sure that he does.

William huffs and glances about him. “All asleep. This is poor hosting indeed, Francis, and I am sorry for it.”

“Anne kept me entertained,” Francis says, which is not quite a lie even if it obfuscates the large section of the evening he himself had spent asleep. He gestures toward the door. “She’s asleep, now.”

“Oh, thank you for putting her to bed,” William says easily, and Francis tries not to be surprised and confused and wrong-footed, as he always is when the Coninghams take it as perfectly natural - as a given - that Francis should be allowed to mind and to care for their precious children as a real uncle would. He wants to ask why but can’t find the question; can’t risk the answer. William rubs his forehead, and then smiles at James’ sleeping form. “How he and Liz make those corsets look comfortable, I’ll never understand.”

Francis turns his own wry smile upon James, slumped in the cradle of the sofa’s arm and snoring lightly. “I am told,” he says with some measure of neutral disbelief, “that the whalebone moulds quite comfortably to the wearer.” _The sensation is the most wonderful in the world, Francis: to be held at all times, and quite perfectly safe and armoured,_ James had said, dragging a hand down the boned channels with self-indulgent care. _It is no trial at all._ Francis had rather lost the thread of James’ remarks after that.

“Liz says so too; but to sleep in?” William says, shooting a fond glance at his sleeping wife. “To bed with them both, then, I suppose. And best of luck in getting him out of the thing - Liz is always half-asleep after a nap, and simply will not stand up straight to be unlaced.”

Francis stills in a moment of paralysing dread. The Coninghams had blinked once at James’ attire, his nervously twisted hands, his bright and brittle smile, and told him the dress suited him; the day had then continued precisely as if nothing had changed at all. It could not have gone better, really. But. Francis had not considered that James’ clothing implicates them both in another way - isn’t, therefore, prepared for the fear that fills him. Because, of course, the Coninghams are perfectly justified in accepting their dear beloved brother precisely as he is; and they are justified, too, in blaming Francis, the interloper with unnatural tastes, for the perversion of their own and lovely James. It being justified does very little for the dark, void-like chill that settles in his bones. “I’m sure James can get himself out of his corset,” he says very carefully in a guarded, level tone.

“I’m sure my wife can’t,” William replies, equally level. “She never could get the knots untied without me standing by. And she certainly can’t get into it unaided.” He leans forward, pinning Francis with his pale green gaze; Francis himself is entirely still like a prey animal in the den of a wolf. He knows that his eyes are too wide and panicked to appear at all innocent; and even now, he is sure, he is standing a little too close to James for plausible friendliness. He cannot help it. He is swept up in the swirl of James’ skirts and helpless but to linger there in his orbit like a knight-at-arms enchanted by faeries.

Francis almost wishes that William would say something - would condemn him at last - if only to shatter the quiet illusion of peace crafted carefully by the ticking clock and crackling fire and soft, slow breaths of the sleepers. But he doesn’t.

“If you want me to go-” he begins, quick and quiet, but William cuts him off.

“Absolutely not, unless you mean to go to your room with my dear brother on your arm,” he says rather sternly. “Really, Francis, you’d have me risk the wrath of the realm’s finest dragon-slayer? Anne would hunt you down.”

Francis huffs a laugh that is slightly gasping, high-pitched and choked. It’s a relief that burns too hot within him, seeming to rather hollow him out; he lets out a breath which he had been trying not to hold. He had promised James that he was happy here, staying with James’ family, and he is - only, it hadn’t occurred to him that he could hope to be _happier._ “She asked me if she was allowed to run away to sea,” he says. He doesn’t doubt that Anne would strike out for London if so minded, and almost doesn’t doubt that he would be incentive enough.

William sighs and slumps back. He picks up his wife’s hand and pats it gently, offering her a rueful smile. “Oh, my dear. All our hopes of a peaceful old age are quite ruined,” William tells her very softly, careful not to wake her.

He sounds rather proud.

Francis carefully kneels at James’ feet and settles a hand over his knee, rubbing the edge of the bone through his many layers of skirts. “James,” he says gently. “Come to bed.”

James surfaces slowly, blinking at the gloom; and then his eyes find Francis, and his smile is as warm and welcoming as the sunshine on the sea. “Francis,” he replies, voice heavy with sleep. “Are you sure I have to get up? I am ever so comfortable here.”

Francis raises an eyebrow. “You most certainly do; I am not spending tomorrow listening to you complain about how your neck hurts because you wouldn’t sleep in a proper bed.”

James offers him an exaggerated pout and reaches out to trace his fingers along Francis’ jaw. “Won’t you just pick me up and carry me off to bed? A little light ravishing is expected of abducted princesses, you know.”

Francis twitches slightly in something that is not quite a flinch, and not quite not one either. His eyes slide in guilty panic to William, who is grinning in the vague direction of the fireplace; James follows Francis’ gaze and stills.

William looks over at them, eyes wide in the very picture of innocence. Francis is abruptly very aware that William and James had spent their entire youths together, getting up to all sorts of mischief and - he suspects - hiding their misdemeanours behind William’s angelic aspect. He spares a moment of sympathy for their poor parents. “I didn’t hear that,” William tells them, lying through his teeth.

“Hear what?” James retorts. His ears have gone rather red and he is determined to busy himself with his skirts rather than make eye contact with either of them, but his panicked stillness has abated, to Francis’ rather great relief. “I am going to bed,” he says, standing rather primly with a sweep of his skirts that washes Francis back onto his heels to gaze up at James, all fine lines and sharp angles like a glittering crystal. “Goodnight, gentlemen.”

“Goodnight,” William says, almost laughing; he shoots a grin at Francis that is so full of delighted affection for James that Francis has to duck his head against the strength of it.

“Goodnight, Mr Coningham,” he says, pushing himself to his feet and beginning to follow James.

“Sir Francis,” William replies.

“He’ll stop calling you that if you start calling him William, you know,” James says over his shoulder as Francis follows him into the cool, dark entrance hall.

Francis shrugs; this is very likely true. But just for tonight, he thinks he doesn’t mind. He is the knight _and_ the dragon, the sword and the shield; he wears James’ affection like the finest of favours as he rides towards the things which frighten him, and coils himself protectively about James, his hard-won prize. Francis takes stock of his old and battered joints, weighing his chances of success, and deems it worth the risk of immobility in the morning.

James’ squawk of delighted laughter as Francis catches him about the waist and carries him to bed over one shoulder is almost certainly audible in the sitting room; Francis wouldn’t be surprised if Anne stirs in her sleep to wonder at it before returning to her dreams of rolling waves and grand adventures. But he finds that he is happy, and that he rather doesn’t mind.

**Author's Note:**

> references:  
> the lady of shalott, alfred lord tennyson  
> la belle dame sans merci, john keats  
> willy taylor, trad. (i like the rosie hodgson version best)
> 
> i also don't reference the song anne louise in this story, because it was written by the longest johns for their 2013 debut album bones in the ocean, making it highly anachronistic for francis to hum it for anne louisa. so.
> 
> friend: are you out to your parents yet?  
> me: no and i'm fine about it


End file.
